Pages

7.02.2012

Our Barren Yard

Holy lord I'm exhausted. We spent the last two days ripping, shoveling, draining, lifting and laboring. I fell asleep on the couch at 8pm last night. And I can't remember a time when my back was more sore. Except, wait, oh yeah, when we ripped out all of the concrete and spent 4 months working on our patio...

Our drains aren't quite done, so hopefully we can finish that today after Chris gets home from work and I'll have more progress to share tomorrow. But the grass is ripped out, woo-hoo!

We started out Saturday morning looking like this

Then add in a partially ripped up front porch

Knowing that we'd need a jackhammer we set out early for HD. We also decided to hire a day laborer that we had used before to help us. Throughout the process of renovating Chris and I have learned the value of someone who works really hard and someone who can dig really well. Digging might sound easy and all fun and games. But it is hard work and it's also pretty difficult to make sure that you're digging well enough so that the sides of your trench don't cave in and that the bottom is flat and even. We had saved the guys number who helped with finishing off the digging of our patio (his name was Pedro) and we gave him a call earlier in the week to ask if he'd be available to help us out. He said he would, so on the way home from HD we picked him up. While Chris and I spent 10 minutes using our $75 rented jackhammer (okay, more like 20 minutes, but still annoying) he got started ripping out the grass.

Our porch started looking like this

And our yard started looking like this

Early in the day Chris headed back to HD to return the jackhammer and get our future drain supplies

And Pedro and I stayed at home and kept working on the yard. He ripped up the grass way more efficiently and quickly than Chris and I could - just the itty bitty very top layer so we didn't have too much dirt we'd need to dispose of, hooray! If Chris and I did it I'm sure it'd be a hot mess with pot holes everywhere. He also grouped the ripped up grass in small piles so I grabbed a shovel and loaded it all in the truck for a dump run.

By the afternoon our yard was looking good. And by good I mean like a total disaster, but without grass

AND we made some great progress on getting our first and deepest trench dug

I had to leave around 4:15 for a shindig my mom was having, but Chris and Pedro kept working hard getting the last of the grass out and some more of the trench dug. I left a pretty sparse looking yard

And by the end of the day all the grass was out (minus a small area by the trench but we didn't want to rip it out till the trench is done for fear stepping all over that area might cave it in)

And the truck was pretty full (we didn't want to load it anymore because of the weight)

We headed out early yesterday morning to the dump to drop off all the grass. We were a little afraid about how much it would cost because we'd never dumped that before, but it came in at $25 so we were pleasantly surprised. Then it was off to pick up Pedro for Day 2 and go home and dig some trenches because this...

...was not enough.

Now it's time to do some yoga then head out to paint a condo unit. I'm hoping I don't fall over.

Follow us around the web

Contact Us

Hi! We're Chris and Meryl and we're renovating our Storybook home in Oakland, CA. Chris is the handy, knowledgeable builder and I'm his slightly inappropriate assistant. We've got 2 little girls who attempt to help as well - Zoe is 2 and Merritt arrived in June of 2015. Spurred by our love of renovating our own home we started a handyman, design and organizing business and now that we're both self employed we're busier than ever, but we love it!